


One Good Thing

by Angela



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Birthday, Canon Compliant, M/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25888483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angela/pseuds/Angela
Summary: Ash spent his eighteenth birthday in a beat-up truck, driving across Nebraska. As far as birthdays went, it wasn’t the worst.
Relationships: Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji
Comments: 16
Kudos: 151





	One Good Thing

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in August of 2018 for the Wishes fanzine. As it's no longer in print, I thought I'd share it here, too. I hope you like it.

One Good Thing  
by Angela

Ash spent his eighteenth birthday in a beat-up truck, driving across Nebraska. As far as birthdays went, it wasn’t the worst – not by a long shot – but they’d started the day with a flat tire and the realization they’d left the lug wrench in Cape Cod. Plus, it had rained the night before, demonstrating to everyone how annoying “practically no leaks” could actually be. To make matters worse, the radio that Shunichi had managed to coax to life in Massachusetts had died, and Max was singing again.

But Ash was ambivalent. Sure, it was a shit day, certain to be bookended by other shit days, but at least no one was shooting at them. He didn’t mind road trip monotony because he was at home in his own head. While Shorter clearly suffered from a shortage of entertainment, Ash had never had too much to entertain him in the first place. Hours of free time to think or not think as he wished was something of a luxury.

He kicked his heels onto the dashboard, tucking his hands behind his head.

“Do you have to do that?” Max looked askance, not quite taking his eyes from the road. “You’re getting dried mud everywhere.”

“Truck’s not exactly clean to start with,” Ash countered. He didn’t move his feet except to flex them slightly, flaking off even more mud.

Max grunted. “Someone needs to adjust your attitude.”

Ash turned to him, fixing his face into a threatening scowl. “You wanna try, old man?”

“Nah.” Max pretended not to smile. “Hopeless case like you isn’t worth my time.”

Ash closed his eyes, weirdly satisfied. Max was okay, as long as he wasn’t singing that goddamned song.

Ash had learned a long time ago not to bother telling anyone it was his birthday. It changed nothing; he hadn’t gotten so much as a birthday cake since he turned six.

Not that Ash cared about that sort of thing. All he ever wanted was for one good thing to happen on his birthday. It didn’t have to be a big thing, though the year that Golzine got food poisoning and ended up in the hospital had been the best birthday of his life, probably. He was just as happy with something small, like when the city opened the fire hydrants to let kids cool off during a particularly nasty heat wave.

Tapping from the back window pulled Ash from his thoughts. It was too delicate a sound for Shorter, who was usually the one demanding pit stops or more Cheetos or for Ash to switch places because his ass was sore. This time it was Eiji.

Ash twisted in his seat and slid the window open.

“Can we stop in the next town?” Eiji asked in his softly accented English. “Ibe-san wants to find a grocery store this time, before camping.” The last two nights they’d eaten only what they could scavenge at gas stations, which meant lots of chips and Twinkies, but almost nothing with any nutritional value.

“Sure,” Ash agreed. He watched Eiji crawl back to his spot in the truck bed. They had the canvas top folded back that day – probably to keep the soggy material from dripping all over them – and the wind tousled Eiji’s hair.

“You realize you only ever say yes to Eiji,” Max noted as soon as Ash was back in his seat. His eyes were bright and he waggled his eyebrows merrily.

“No way,” Ash insisted. “When Shorter wants bathroom breaks – ”

“You tell him to hold it.”

That sounded true, but Ash saw no reason to concede the point. Just because he liked to pick on Shorter, it didn’t follow that he went easy on Eiji. They bickered about it until Max found an exit that led to an actual town. It was a tiny place, but they had an IGA.

Shorter was out of the truck almost before Max parked. The bathroom, no doubt. That guy had a bladder the size of a walnut. Ash glanced into the back, where Eiji gathered the empty Seven-Up cans that probably contributed to Shorter’s urgency.

“I’ll toss those,” Ash offered, taking the bag of trash.

Eiji hopped out of the truck. “It feels so good to stand up!” he said, stretching like a runner with one leg on the tailgate.

“You wanna sit shotgun with Max?” The words were out of Ash’s mouth before he had any notion of them. Both Ibe and Shorter had been clamoring for a turn in the cab, but for days Ash had refused to give up his spot.

“It’s okay,” Eiji said, smiling. “I like the wind.”

The supermarket was interesting, in a country-charm-equals-downtrodden-and-pathetic kind of way. Ibe gathered canned stew and beans. “Cowboy food,” Shorter said when he saw it. Eiji added a bag of apples. Ash went back outside to play Kangaroo on the arcade box by the front door, bumming quarters from Max whenever he needed to refill his life bar.

“This is a shit game,” he complained when Eiji and Shorter emerged with the bags. “It’s like it wants to be Donkey Kong or something.”

“You spent a dollar-fifty on that shit game!” Max protested. “I want my change back!”

“It’s my birthday present!” Ash insisted, not looking up from the screen.

“Demons like you aren’t born,” Max insisted. “That sort of thing only happens when things go very badly in heaven.”

Ash was glad Max hadn’t taken the birthday thing seriously. He wondered why he’d even said it in the first place. In his experience, telling anyone was a guaranteed way to ensure the day was terrible. Blanca had tried to give him a birthday present once – Ash got to watch Golzine toss it, still wrapped, into the fireplace. No, it was much better to keep it to himself.

They drove a few more hours that night, until Ash wasn’t quite sure if they were still in Nebraska or if they’d crossed into Colorado. Camping by the roadside was illegal, so Max turned off the headlights and drove down a dirt road until they were surrounded by wheat on both sides. The hope was that they could spend the night unnoticed by both the landowner and the highway patrol.

The campfire was a terrible idea, but Eiji wished out loud that they could eat warm stew, and as long as they kept it small, no one would notice, right? There weren’t any sticks for firewood, but Shorter yanked a couple of half-rotten 2x4s from a fence and Ash gathered dry wheat for kindling.

After they’d eaten, Ash watched the fire burn down, enjoying the heat because evidently Nebraska – or Colorado – had cool nights in August. It hadn’t been the worst birthday. Far from it, though there was little enough to make it memorable. Eighteen. That was kind of a big deal.

Ash looked at the faces around him. He liked these guys. Even Max. If Ash were going to choose people to come to a hypothetical eighteenth birthday party, the guest list wouldn’t look much different.

“You are quiet.” Eiji sat on the ground next to him, wrapping his arms around his knees to conserve space or heat or maybe just because it was cute.

“I’m not a big talker,” Ash reminded him.

“You are quiet for you,” Eiji amended, a laugh hidden in his voice.

Ash didn’t know how to answer that, so he didn’t. Eiji didn’t seem to mind. For a long time they sat in companionable silence.

“I got you something,” Eiji said after a while. “At the store.”

Ash looked up, startled. “What?”

Eiji reached into his jacket. “Do not show Shorter,” he warned, glancing up to where he set out the bedding in the truck. “It was the last one and we both wanted it, so we agreed not to buy it. But I saw that you liked them, before.”

Ash’s curiosity was getting the better of him. Eiji went behind Shorter’s back to get him something?

“Close your eyes,” Eiji hedged.

By now Ash was willing to do anything. He closed his eyes, holding his hands open. “I hope it doesn’t bite,” he joked.

There was a rustle of cellophane and Eiji put something lightweight in his palms. Ash opened his eyes to see a package of Hostess cupcakes – the orange kind. His favorite.

“You like it?” Eiji asked eagerly, but Ash couldn’t answer. There was a thickness in his throat and his eyes stung. For an awful moment, he thought he might cry.

Eiji had got him cake. On his birthday.

“Thank you,” he said after too long a pause. “I do like these.”

Eiji’s face cracked open into a glorious smile. “Good!” he said, happy. “I will go help Ibe-san and Shorter. You stay here and eat!” He was on his feet in an instant, hopping into the truck.

Ash watched him for a long time, realizing that, for now at least, he had his one good thing.


End file.
